The life and times of the Chief Dental Editor of Dental Products Report magazine and dentistry's "Technology Evangelist". Follow my thoughts and travels as I practice, write, lecture, tinker, and experiment with technology and technology in dentistry.

Monday, June 17, 2019

A colleague just made me aware of this new product that looks really interesting and is used after surgery to reduce swelling and might just minimize dependency on pain killers. The new product is called Denta-Cool and is currently being used in the medical field for cancer patients after Chemo treatment with great results. It’s a pretty simple concept - an icy mouthpiece you use after oral surgery. They have some kind of patented technology that makes it work. I’m going to evaluate it and let you know what I think.

There’s limited research on cryotherapy. Here’s what we know.

The first available report of oral cryotherapy is the use of ice to ease toothache, published in 1988. However, in the last decade, several individual research studies have reported the benefits of oral cryotherapy in treating dental conditions.
• A study in 2010 reported that the use of ice popsicles reduced discomfort and self-mutilation in children after dental treatment
• A study in 2016 on 75 teeth undergoing single-visit root canal treatment showed that irrigation with cold (2–4 °C) saline after root canal treatment resulted in significantly lesser pain
• A similar study in 2017 reported pain reduction in root canal treatment of teeth with vital pulps
• A study in 2015 on extracted teeth found that a five-minute irrigation of 20 teeth with cold (2.5 °C) saline resulted in a 10 °C temperature reduction of root surfaces for four minutes
• In 2013, a study on 86 teeth reported the reduction of bacteria (Enterococcus faecalis) in root canals due to irrigation with a cryogenic fluid
• In addition, oral cryotherapy was shown to be a potentially useful treatment for inflammatory conditions of the mouth such as specific types of gingival hyperplasia. In this study, liquid nitrogen was sprayed directly onto the tooth surface after xylocaine administration. Six sessions each consisting of four 20–30-second applications followed by 30-second thawing were used and found to be effective

If you’ve every sprained your ankle or been stung by a bee, common sense tells us that cold therapy will reduce swelling. So, it stands to reason 30 minutes of cryotherapy will have some effect - the jury is still out on how much it helps. But the game-changer is if it works well enough to reduce or even eliminate opioids which is a hot topic right now.

You can check it out here and get a free sample to see if it works for your patients. I’ve ordered one and will let you know my findings down the road.